Customs Strike Force seizes goods worth over N174m

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Strike Force in Lagos axis has seized goods worth more than N174 million in the last seven weeks.

The Public Relations Officer of NCS, Mr Joseph Attah, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja.

He said the aim of the Strike Force was to block revenue leakages.

“It been seven weeks now that the Strike Force was Commissioned, only from Lagos axis the team has been able to make some assorted seizures with a Duty Paid Value(DPV) of about N174, 699 million.

“This seizures includes used cars known as Tokunbo, they have intercepted 14 containers of raw woods. You know exportation of unprocessed woods is prohibited.

“They also made similar intervention of containers in Tin-Can, Apapa Port, they have been able to intercept items in various Commands,’’ Attah said.

He explained that the Strike Force monitors Customs system with a view to tracking the process of clearance whenever it noticed infraction in any Command.

Attah said the Strike Force would then send alert to the Command with the view of drawing the attention of the Command to block revenue leakages.

He added that the Strike Force had also made interventions in Onni, KLT, Tin-Can, Apapa and Kano.

According to him, the duty received on intervention by the Strike Force is put at N156 million.

He said the operations of the Strike Force was generally different from that of the Compliance Team that was earlier dissolved by the Service.

Attah said with the Strike Force, one does not get to hear complaints about unnecessary blockage at the highways or wrong interception of properly cleared containers.

He said this was because the Strike Force activities were heavily driven by intelligence and deployment of ICT.

According to him, the Head of the Force, Deputy Comptroller, Abubakar Usman, has warned importers, agents and Customs operatives that business must be done strictly in line with external laws.

Attah said to ensure that the Strike Force succeeds, the Comptroller-General of Customs, retired Col. Hameed Ali, had continued to provide all necessary logistics in term of fire power and ICT platform that should be available to them.

He said these logistics would enable them view what goes on in the clearance processor.

Attah said the operations of the Strike Force in the last seven weeks had brought in positive impact on clearance of goods.